Virginia Rifle Plan

[hawkeye1755]

I'm looking for in Virgina Rifle Plan (ca 1750 ).
Does anybody knows where I can find or buy such a plan?
I know that Jim Chambers sell a Mark Silver-Virginia Rifle.
Thank you for your help
:hatsoff:

 

[Mike Brooks]

We have no idea what a rifle looked like from Virginia in 1750, even tho we know they existed. No examples that can be dated that early have been identified. We can speculate, but that's about it.
Wallace Gusler showed me one that he thought was probably made before or during the F&I war. It has a large calibered colonial barrel and the rest of the parts are from old french and english trade guns. It's pictured in shumway's book, but I don't have it in hand at the moment. If I remember I'll post which one it is later today.

 

[bnail]

I too am curious about this elusive Virginia Rifle. Va. was huge colony back then, pinning a single style and calling it a "Virginia style" was intriguing to me.
What features make up a Virginia Rifle?

 

[Mike Brooks]

Just like Penn., Virginia had many different styles or "schools" depending on where or when. Pretty broad subject that is hard to answer. Just like saying "what makes a Penn. rifle a Penn. rifle?"

 

[bnail]

I wondered if there were different schools and Gunsmiths associated with Virginia. As old as the colony is, it's logical to me that Virginia guns would have their own unique touches, more English influence than German perhaps?

 

[dlemaster]

I have heard of the James River, Shenandoah, and Winchester schools of a slightly later period.

Regards, Dave

 

[big bore 75]

I just complted a rifle fom tenesse valley manufactureing, I have seen anothe three or four that have been built, but I too, don't know of any, real examples, but there have been a few books wrote about tha virginia long rifle, untill then my rifle is a bit robust, and seems a bit heavy wood wise in the butt and wrist area but built mine with the idea of 1750's but did not put a swamped barrel on it wish I did now though with a 54 cal tube and 36 in barrel, I wonder how the 42" would have been instaed heavy off the front most likely so far its my favorite rifle,thinking seriously about rebarreling it to smooth bore in 62 when ever green river gets off its butt and gets those barrels out. bb75

 

[George F.]

I have a book on Virginia rifles...GUNSMITHS OF VIRGINIA ---by James B. Whisker. Published by OLD BEDFORD PRESS...Box 1976...Bedford, Pa. 814-623-1943. My perctiuclar book I got through TRACK OF THE WOLF.. 763-424-2500. The book is 158 pages. The first 82 pages is biographical, the rest is photgraphs of guns. He lists the different schools of gunsmithing, and they are...EASTERN VIRGINIA, BERKELEY COUNTY,JAMES RIVER, SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA,HAMPSHIRE COUNTY,MORGANTOWN, WHEELING-NORTHERN PANHANDLE, and the PRESTON COUNTY SCHOOL.
It mentions that little to none of early gunsmiths or their work exists or survived.There work ranged from lacking artistic merit to considerable artistic merit and amoung the finest made.
On page 83 There's an unsigned rifle with a brass octagon barrel ca. 1750-60, but most of them are from after that. This is a good book, and might interest you.
Also in the JOURNAL OF HISTORICAL ARMSMAKING TECHNOLOGY volume V. Wallace Gusler and David Harvey, partially disassemble a rifle by John Sheetz of the Winchester school. They examine and appraise this beautiful firearm, There are lots of intereseting data and photographs about 50 pages.
I hoped this helped........... George F.

 

[Okwaho]

Mike, I believe you may be thinking of No.142 in Vol.II.There has been some thought that this gun might be South Carolina in origin but Wallace had it at the Norris show and I believe he attributed it to Virginia and possibly even a maker although I'm not sure about that latter.It's a fine old gun and looks much better in person.The lock is probably from a 1690's French musket lock and is very similar to the "1696 French Marine Musket Fusil Ordinaire" shown by Jess Melot in the Rifle Shoppe catalogue on P.88 as No.680.Both this gun{142} and No.680{TRS} have locks 6" or longer which take them out of the sporting fusil category. My 1690's fusil fin has an almost identical lock plate{a reconversion} but is 5 1/4" long and is definitely a fusil fin although I suspect it may have been an officer's fusil.

Like you I don't know of ANY guns that can be safely identified or attributed to a Virginia maker in the 1750's.Attribution in this time period is highly risky and one need only look to No.119 in Vol.II which for some time had been referred to as the Bullard rifle until an identical rifle turned up signed Newcomer of Lancaster.County,Pa.
Tom Patton :m2c:

 

[Hoyt]

The only one I could find was THIS ONE BY HERSEL HOUSE I used it to build my Pecatonica Virginia style smooth rifle.
I just checked and the url doesn't go to the rifle prints..you'll have to go to Log Cabin and look down the list to find "Rifle Prints" and find it.

 

[Mike Brooks]

Hi George,
That brass barreled rifle is a spectacular gun. I've handled it several times and it looks even greater in person than it does in pictures. It is dated 1771 on the bottom side of the patch box cover. Most of the people "in the know" believe that date is legit and the gun dates from that 1771 time frame. i personally would have placed it much earlier, but you never know about these old guns....

 

[rich pierce]

Undertaker, you've got lots of choices. As everyone mentioned, there are no examples of rifles that can reliably dated to the 1750s and to any particular locale. Even among guns believed to be made in that era but not signed, the numbers are few. So you have a lot of freedom. You could buy the Virginia Rifle kit from Chambers or others. Plans- I dunno. One choice is to buy Volume 2 of Rifles of Colonial America by Shumway and blow up pictures there. The dimensions are all given and you could readily make your own plans for any rifle there that would be attributed to Virginia or even "the South" and noted by Shumway to be of pre-Revolutionary War vintage.

If you want to be more creative, I'd start with lock, stock and barrel suitable for the times. Get a large early round-faced English lock, a Chambers or Davis perhaps, or an offering by Blackley. A long swamped barrel of .50 or larger would seem correct, heavy in the breech. Walnut or curly maple. Sliding wooden patchbox. English-styled carving around the tang etc. If all the parts and decoration are for the time, and you use motifs on early guns from that place, you have room to get creative.

 

[Stophel]

That gun is RCA #142. Wallace Gusler had it and attributed it to Virginia (just like everything else)...even nailing it down to Augusta county. Now, just how one is supposed to attribute a gun as incredibly generic as this one, I don't know. I didn't ask....Not going to either.

I also have yet to be convinced that the brass barreled gun is from[url] Virginia..in[/url] fact, I have never seen even the slightest indication of WHY he attributes it to Virginia :hmm:...and don't get me started on "gun #42"..... ::

As was said, the brass gun is dated 1771, and since the gun looks like a 1771 gun, I don't really doubt it. Gun 142 COULD be quite early (or, it could easily have been made in 1810!!!), and yes, it COULD be from Virginia. It fits in with what we all EXPECT a 1750's/1760' rifle from Virginia to look like...that is to say, very English.

The "Johannes Faeber" gun (surely the owner and not the gunsmith) along with a couple of other presumed Shenandoa rifles are good examples of VA gunmaking in the 1760's-1770's. One of these guns was illustrated by Shumway in Muzzle Blasts, Oct 1982. This is one wierd gun. At first glance, it is quite conventional, but the entire gun is incredibly crooked, twisted, canted, off-center and out-of-square, yet it still holds pretty nicely. Given the 1770's style sideplate, I say there's no way on earth that this gun predates about 1770, though Mr. Gusler (who has this gun too) swears it is 1760 or earlier, saying this style of sideplate goes back into the 1750's...of course I haven't seen a positive example of one.

The "Faeber" gun COULD be 1750's...there is nothing about it that really says it couldn't be, but the cheekpiece (if you really want to call it that...) bothers me. If the gun had no cheekpiece, I would be much more amenable to dating this gun to the 1750's. The gun basically looks like an English gun of the 1720's-1740's...with the addition of a German-type triggerguard and that "stuck-on" cheekpiece.

There are several other PRESUMED Virginia rifles from the 1760's, but none that can realistically be placed any earlier than that (at least none that we know...).

To further annoy people, I have the sneaking suspicion that a great many guns attributed to "the South" were actually made in New York or other points north...Some of them have already been proven to be so.

 

[C_Laubach]

To further annoy people, I have the sneaking suspicion that a great many guns attributed to "the South" were actually made in New York or other points north...Some of them have already been proven to be so.

Here we go again!! :yakyak:

 

[Flint1]

I have an Early Virginia from Narrangansett Armes. They advertised it as ca. 1760. Many of Narragansett's offerings are copied from surviving originals. Their Early Virginia is based on Herschel House's interpretation of what an Early Virginia probably would have looked like--though not copied directly from his design. I have read guns from the Southern colonies would have had more of an English, rather than Germanic, influemce.

 

[hawkeye1755]

Thank you for all the information.
I think , i must buy some new books and have alot of to read.

What do you think of Edward Marshall's rifle only with in
42' barrel instead of in 36' barrel?
:hatsoff:

 

[rich pierce]

Thank you for all the information.
I think , i must buy some new books and have alot of to read.

What do you think of Edward Marshall's rifle only with in
42' barrel instead of in 36' barrel?
:hatsoff:

Sounds like you're looking at different options for an early American longrifle that could have been made in the 1750's. A Marshall-style rifle would be an excellent choice; the architecture and furniture are appropriate (as far as we know, since there are no dated examples), and many early guns had 42" barrels. I think 36" is too short for an American longrifle, early or not; 38-39" looks better. yes, there are exceptions; I am stating preferences.

Best you could do is buy Shumway's Rifles of Colonial America 2-book series.

 

[Mike Brooks]

Chris, I sure am glad you wrote all of that instead of me...I'm already in enough trouble around here. :crackup:

 

[nchawkeye]

I went through this 20 years ago...wanted a 1770 era Carolina rifle....I just went with a early Lancaster stock and furniture, plain Lancaster Daisy patchbox, .54 cal swamped 38 inch barrel and let it go at that....I'd build the same today, except I might go with a 42 inch barrel...I just didn't feel the need for the longer barrel.

You could go the same route, just use a wooden patch box.

 

[Stophel]

Great minds think alike, Mike!

There is a really super cool plain rifle that Shumway illustrated several years ago that was found in a "small private museum" in North Carolina. It could well be a North Carolina gun. Very "ordinary" in form. No carving, no sideplate and from the lousy photos it APPEARS to have no nosecap. About 1770.

I think something like the Faeber rifle or "gun 142" is about as close as you're going to find to a 1750's Virginia rifle. You can't really go wrong with something like this.